“You know, Janice, the other little girls where I was all talked about their mammas, and how good mammas were to have, and I couldn’t say a word, ’cept about my father. Of course, I told ’em he was better than most mammas; but they wouldn’t b’lieve me. So I jest prayed hard that I would have a mamma—and there couldn’t be one nicer, I’m sure, than Miss ’Rill.
“I’m going to call her ‘Mamma ’Rill’—it’s such a pretty name,” went on Lottie. “She says she’ll not mind what I call her so long as I love her. Who wouldn’t love Miss ’Rill?”
“That is true, Lottie,” agreed Janice. “And I know she will be devoted to you, just as though you were her owniest own little girl!”
“And we’re going to make papa happy together—she says so,” declared Lottie. “He isn’t sorry any more; and he plays real lively tunes on his fiddle. I like them best, too, for I can hear them now; and the sad, quavery tunes make me cry.”
Winter was coming on in earnest. The cornfields were dreary looking and the puddles in the roadway of a morning were mirrors of black ice as Janice’s car whisked over them on her way to school. She must look forward now to bad weather and heavy snows, when she would be obliged to remain in Middletown until Friday evening, and come back home with Walky Dexter, returning with him to school on Monday morning.
While the weather remained brisk and dry there was still much enjoyment to be had out of her car. Every close friend she possessed in Polktown, as well as at the seminary, had ridden once or more in the Kremlin, except Nelson Haley. So far he had never stepped foot into her car.
And it seemed that Nelson was drifting farther and farther away from her. She seldom saw him during these autumn weeks to speak to, even at church. In the usual public places he was almost always in attendance on Frank Bowman’s sister. Annette selfishly acquired all the male attention possible; Nelson was not alone in her train. But it was Nelson’s case that troubled Janice.
For the younger girl was sensible enough to see that the school teacher was hurting himself in the eyes of Polktown people by dancing attendance upon the city girl. Annette had led social affairs for some time now; but she overstepped the bounds of what many of the quieter people of the town considered decent.
Until her brother stopped it—and stopped it with indignation—she had allowed the traveling salesmen that came to the inn to take her about to country dances, boating parties, and the like. At several parlor dances, too, Annette had been Bogarti’s partner in new and daring expositions of the modern steps. And her evening frocks were very, very décolleté.
Gradually the nicer people began to fall away from Annette. Even some of the bolder and faster girls were made by their parents to keep away from Miss Bowman. When a girl begins to be talked about in a country town her reputation is very likely to be ruined for life; and although the city girl did absolutely nothing that Gossip could point at as wicked, she was traveling a very narrow path along the Precipice of Public Opinion.